3.25.2013

HARRY BENNETT'S DAY CARE CENTER AND IGGY POP'S SUMMER CAMP!

Harry Bennett's Castle from the Huron River Rear View

**Note*** back in the 1970's there was a Day Care Center called Island Country Day on the property of Harry Bennett's Castle in Ann Arbor
Michael B's Story

I don't really remember a lot as I went to Island Country Day about 50 years ago. Any memories are tinged by loads of imagination. I also knew the owner Stark's Daughter, I think one was named Nancy Stark and I'm tempted to say the other was Susan. Their High School was Greenhills in Ann Arbor.

I can say that I thought the Castle was like a real medieval Castle and your piece brought memories flooding back to me. Although, I do remember the bubble christmas tree lights on Nana's Christmas Tree. Island Country Day was the perfect place for imaginative children--I remember going to a moving company to get a refrigerator box so that we could make a "spaceship".

I did live close to the Castle, but only went there once in the mid-70s after that time. I also had Iggy Pop as a counselor at Varsity Day Camp, but I will defer to my oldest Friend, Hugh Hitchcock for that story...Hugh is slightly older than I am and confirmed that Jim Osterburg was still at Varsity Day Camp the first year I was there. Between going to a pre-School at a "castle" and having Iggy Pop as a Camp Counsellor, I have an imagination that makes Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes look non-existent!

Read more about:
Harry Bennett's Castle HERE
The Rise and Fall of Harry Bennett HERE
Harry Bennett's Cabin HERE



Jim's Senior Picture

I am not kidding you, it’s the Gospel truth. Iggy Pop was my camp couselor. His specialty was turtle-catching, in a rowboat. He wasn’t known by the name Iggy Pop in those days, however. Back then he was just Jim Osterberg. Both he and his father “Jimmy” worked at the day camp my mother sent me to.


I was also picked up by Jim’s dad Jimmy in his blue Chevy station wagon many times. Jimmy was the golf counselor at the camp. I took his golfing class a few times. He was a good teacher, but I found the game boring. It was the same way I felt about Archery. In the hot summer sun, I preferred to be near the lake, and since I loved frogs and turtles I invariably ended up with Iggy Pop, err, Jim Osterberg and a few other kids out in the lake in the rowboat, looking for turtles. At age 8 or 9 I’d figured out that Jim Osterberg was my favorite counselor at Varsity Day Camp...FULL STORY

Varsity Camp Excerpt from Paul Trynka's "Open UP and Bleed"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Toss in Dorothy Stark's Bassett Hound: "Waldo"!

Of course, the thought of Iggy Pop as a Camp Counsellor is totally against his current image, but...

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